Playing away

One of the joys of climbing is discovering the vast array of rocks out there, and the last few weeks have seen us leaving the comfort zone of Almscliff to pastures new. Well I say new, but this has largely focussed on Caley Crag, which is probably one of the more established bouldering venues in the North. Indeed the sense of history, and the experience of many of the climbers met there, make me feel quite humble. However, I also managed to check out Norwood (and meet some its developers)- one of the more recent additions to the bouldering catalogue.

Unfortunately, the other recent theme has been aches and pains, and struggling to up my grades. Not sure when this started, but have a feeling that a scary 5 minutes spent at the top of a rock at Spofforth, trying to shake out and reverse back to safety, can't have helped. However, being philosophical, I reckon that climbing ebbs and flows and am looking forward to things picking back up again. In the meantime, its been great watching others progress and get some ticks in. And our visits to Caley have lined up some acheivable projects to add to the tick list- Smear Arete, Roof of the World, Scone slab direct and rockover, and a very elusive Flapjack scoop.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to getting back into the warm embrace of Almscliff- with a month left til Summer Solstice we've got some long summer evenings ahead, and there is no finer place to watch the sun go down.